


Percy Jackson and the Lightning Quest

by MrToddWilkins



Series: Changing Everything [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-07 18:06:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrToddWilkins/pseuds/MrToddWilkins
Summary: These next three chapters are from Percy’s point of view,then the POV will shift to Grover.





	1. Prologue

_April 7,2005_

_Mount Olympus (the original,in Greece)_

Thunder crackled across the nighttime sky,creating arcs of fire that shone like a second daylight. The lightning served to illuminate the palace,its walls of marble and silveron shining with barely restrained power from the dawn of the world. The halls were carved with runes of power,set there by the Three Fates in days long forgotten,save by immortals. The many courtyards were filled with temples,statuary,altars,and parks as far as the eye could see.

Above the sprawling complex of  _Paliós_ _Ólympos_ was the Aureum,the ancient Palace of Counsel. Here,some of the energy that had heralded the arrival of the immortal ones remained. 12 pillars,one for each Olympian god and goddess,surrounded a central ring a hundred furlongs wide. In the midst of this great ring,two gods met.

———

“Well met,brother Poseidon. I trust your journey was without delay?”

”It was,brother Zeus. The spirits of the waters are calm. Hades bade me bear his greetings to you.”

”I’m sure the old miser did. Has Persephone ascended back into the world?”

”Yes,the day before yesterday. She is at the House of the Wolves,gathering intelligence on all that has passed during the winter.”

”Bear her my greetings when you can. Now,to the matter at hand. What can your folk tell of the bolt’s theft?”

”They have searched in many lands and waters,even some not of the Earth. But all is for nothing:not even the faintest trace of the bolt’s energy can be detected.”

 


	2. Percy:In which I accidentally vaporize my math teacher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These next three chapters are from Percy’s point of view,then the POV will shift to Grover.

 Look,guys,I didn’t want to be a half-blood,okay?

If you’re reading this story,close it right now. Being a half-blood is dangerous business,and very scary to boot. A lot of the time,various monsters are hunting you,seeking out anyone with godly blood.

If you’re normal,then that’s great. Read on. At times,I almost envy you for believing that it’s fiction. 

But if you recognize yourself in the pages of these memoirs, _stop reading._ Like, _right now._ You just may be one of us. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

————-

_May 12,2005_

_New York City_

It was a very nice day for a field trip,I had to admit as we rode the bus into Manhattan. There were a few clouds in the western sky and the Sun provided just the right amount of warmth I needed. 

There was 28 of us kids,all students at Yancy Academy in New Rochelle. We were the craziest kids anyone ever had to teach,most of us having come from various public schools in the greater metropolitan area. We were going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at their collections of ancient Egyptian,Greek,and Roman art. Torture,right? Well,not necessarily. Our Latin teacher,Mr.Cassius Brunner,practically ate this stuff up. Unlike most Latin teachers I’ve heard of,he wasn’t boring. He was as far from boring as it is possible for a teacher to be. Not every teacher let us play games in class,or had an epic suit of genuine Merovingian (or so he claimed) armor behind his desk.

I was praying that I wouldn’t get into trouble this time. Trouble had a way of following me around. See, bad things happened to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, or for Mr.Kellington’s toupee,but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I accidentally hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and most of our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea. But this trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl from Cleveland, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-pickle sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.  He had a note excusing him from gym for the rest of his life because he had muscular dystrophy. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. Headmaster McAvoy had threatened me with in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

“I'm going to kill her," I mumbled. Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter." He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch,casually eating a bite of dill pickle.

“That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. 

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

———

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. Rusted swords gleamed behind glass panels,as did ancient scrolls not even remotely legible,at least not as far as I could tell. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for more than two thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele_ , for a girl only a few years older than us. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for two weeks,and spend it scrubbing the volleyball team’s championship trophies.

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?" It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?" My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?" I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it from one of our first Latin classes  "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?" "Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ...”

”Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king of the Titans,and he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

“And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered. “Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. Ithought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see,” Mr. Brunner looked disappointed, and said, “and actually for most of you it doesn’t matter. Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson." I knew that was coming.

————-

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

“Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is of the _utmost_  importance. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds darker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was the start of a hurricane.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked. "Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?" I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I knew that apples were one of Grover’s favorite foods.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap. "Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." I gave her a weak smile and walked away.

Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing at me to come on into the museum. How'd she get there so fast? 

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. I wasn't so sure. I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. 

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.  Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"You've been giving me problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.  _She's_ _a_ _teacher_ , I thought nervously. _It's not like she's going to hurt me._

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building. “I am not a fool, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before I found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on _Harry Potter_ from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded. "Ma'am, I don't..."

“Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. "What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad  I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur,a dying screech,and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some thing. Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside. It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs.Fawley whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?" “Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs.Fawley. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

“Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious." Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, read ing his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson." I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

  
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?" He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

“The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"


	3. Percy:In which I witness the knitting of deathly socks

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs.Fawley,a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip,had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.  _Almost_.

 


End file.
